Ahold Delhaize, the Dutch-Belgian operator of supermarket chains including Stop & Shop and Giant in the United States, says fourth-quarter net profit soared by more than 300 percent to 744 million euros ($909 million) from the same period a year ago, when one-off costs of 243 million euros dented profits.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) railed against Democrats and the FBI for the "clear link" between Russia and opponents of Donald Trump, who engaged in a literal conspiracy to smear Trump with the cooperation of Russian government officials.
Appearing on Fox News, Nunes traced the path directly from the Clinton campaign to the Kremlin:
“We have a clear link to Russia — you have a campaign who hired a law firm, who hire Fusion GPS, who hired a foreign agent, who then got information from the Russians on the other campaign,” said Nunes, adding “It seems like the counterintelligence investigation should have been opened up against the Hillary campaign when they got ahold of the dossier. But that didn't happen, either.”
Nunes also noted that the FBI never informed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court which granted a spy warrant on one-time Trump advisor Carter Page was not informed that the salacious and unverified dossier used as its foundation was funded in part by the Clinton campaign and the DNC.
It has been reported through various outlets, however, that officials did disclose the political origins of the dossier.
[email protected]: "It seems like the counter intelligence investigation should've been opened up against the Hillary campaign when they got ahold of the dossier. But that didn't happen, either." #Hannity pic.twitter.com/zJuEu7xPwM
— Fox News (@FoxNews) February 6, 2018
Meat the press
Nunes then called out the MSM for extreme hypocrisy over the disproportionate standards applied to the left vs. the right;
"I think the bigger problem, challenge here, is that the mainstream media is totally uninterested in this. Can you imagine if the shoe was on the other foot - and Donald Trump or George Bush or Karl Rove had paid for information and then George W Bush's FBI had opened an investigation into the Obama campaign because they were talking to Russians - which, by the way, really did happen; the Obama campaign was talking to Russians back in 2008 - and open up a counterintelligence investigation using dirt dug up and paid for by RNC and George W. Bush supporters?
This town would be on fire. Every reporter would be following around Karl Rove and George W. Bush all over town - yet it's crickets from the media. It's embarrassing. It's absolutely embarrassing, I'm almost flabbergasted. Because I thought at least there would be some ounce of credibility left, but there really is none." -Devin Nunes
[email protected]: "I think the bigger problem, challenge here, is that the mainstream media is totally uninterested in this. Can you imagine if the shoe was on the other foot?" #Hannity pic.twitter.com/geGYgzdS0P
— Fox News (@FoxNews) February 6, 2018
Phase Two
Earlier on Monday, Nunes appeared on Fox & Friends where he told them that the four-page "FISA memo" authored by staffers from his office and released last Friday was "just the beginning."
While the memo released last Friday summarizes what the House Intelligence Committee GOP says are rampant abuses of surveillance powers by the FBI and DOJ during and after the 2016 election, phase two will focus on "irregularities" within the Obama State Department headed by Hillary Clinton and later John Kerry.
“What we will do in phase two is follow the facts where they lead, and when we get enough facts, we will figure out a way to let the American people know,” Nunes told “Fox & Friends.”
“Phase one of our investigation was getting to the FISA abuse. What we’re looking at now is the State Department and some of the irregularities there,” Nunes said Monday, noting that the committee has “several other areas” to probe.
Nunes first mentioned "phase two" last Friday on Special Report with Bret Baer.
Actual Russian Collusion
While Nunes didn't elaborate, we suspect it might have something to do with the involvement of John Kerry's State Department's in a second Dossier containing claims from Kremlin officials - as detailed in a January 4 letter from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA).
As we detailed yesterday, the second dossier - like the first, relied on Russian officials for information (actual Russian collusion people). From there, this second dossier went from Clinton "hatchet man" Cody Shearer, who gave it to an unnamed official in the Obama State Department, before it was routed it to former British Spy Christopher Steele. It is unknown what happened to the document after that.
Shearer - who took the Russian sourced Dossier and handed it to the Obama State Department, before they then handed it to Christopher Steele - is a controversial political activist and former journalist who was close to the Clinton White House in the 1990s. Of note, Shearer's brother served as an ambassador during the Clinton administration, and his late sister was married to Strobe Talbott, the chief authority on Russia in President Bill Clinton’s State Department, according to ProPublica.
Sounds like exactly the "hatchet man" Hillary Clinton needed to quite literally collude with Russia in order to influence the US election - which, as Devin Nunes pointed out, the FBI should have done something about.
Again;
“It seems like the counterintelligence investigation should have been opened up against the Hillary campaign when they got ahold of the dossier. But that didn't happen, either.” -Devin Nunes
Watch the latest video at foxnews.com

Authored by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
There is a true law, a right reason, conformable to nature, universal, unchangeable, eternal, whose commands urge us to duty, and whose prohibitions restrain us from evil. Whether it enjoins or forbids, the good respect its injunctions, and the wicked treat them with indifference. This law cannot be contradicted by any other law, and is not liable either to derogation or abrogation. Neither the senate nor the people can give us any dispensation for not obeying this universal law of justice. It needs no other expositor and interpreter than our own conscience. It is not one thing at Rome and another at Athens; one thing today and another tomorrow; but in all times and nations this universal law must for ever reign, eternal and imperishable. It is the sovereign master and emperor of all beings. God himself is its author,—its promulgator,—its enforcer. He who obeys it not, flies from himself, and does violence to the very nature of man. For his crime he must endure the severest penalties hereafter, even if he avoid the usual misfortunes of the present life.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
American influence abroad, as defined by the power and status of the U.S. empire, has been in consistent decline for nearly two decades now. Indeed, when the history books are written it’ll be clear that the dotcom boom and bust at the end of the 20th century marked the peak of U.S. imperial strength. Shortly after that bubble burst our nation was faced with the brutal and traumatizing 9/11 attacks, and the overreaction to this event unleashed a mass insanity across the American public from which we have never recovered.
Specifically, the attacks of September 11, 2001 were ruthlessly and immediately exploited by degenerate power hungry charlatans in D.C. and elsewhere to fear-monger an entire country to give up liberty in exchange for a promise of safety. With that devilish bargain our society committed cultural suicide.
As is so often the case with such terrible events, the worst of the worst took charge within our government and began to define the cultural narrative in fascistic terms. These sociopathic war mongers saw the terror attack as an excuse to advance their twisted imperial ambitions abroad, while also earning a fortune pursuing unconstitutional surveillance “opportunities” at home. This Owellian death spiral has been ongoing for over sixteen years now, and doesn’t skip a beat irrespective of who sits in the Oval office. It’s an unaccountable, corrupt and nefarious beast consisting of government, intelligence agencies, mega corporations and Wall Street. This is late-stage U.S. Empire, and it’ll consume everything it can in its path before coming to its inevitable end.
The American people have been fed endless lies for a very long time, and while people are starting to wake up, too many continue to fall for the same old deranged partisan nonsense. Obama was supposed to save us from Bush, then Trump was supposed to save us from Obama. Half the country now prays for some yet to be determined Presidential savior like Oprah to come rescue them in 2020. This is the definition of insanity.
The only way we’ll recover as a nation is if we take a long hard look in the mirror and see how stupid, arrogant and destructive we’ve been since 9/11. One year into the Presidency of Donald Trump, a person Democrats have labeled a Hitler-esque Putin puppet, and 55 Democrats (including Nancy Pelosi and “resistance” hero Adam Schiff) voted to give him and Jeff Sessions more unconstitutional surveillance powers over the public.
It’s so obvious these dishonest politicians in government are constantly lie to you, but many people simply refuse to admit it. The public loves to be endlessly conned along silly, tribal, partisan lines rather than admit that the rot isn’t partisan, but systemic. All sociopaths in D.C. have to do is tweak the message a little every four years to get people frothing at the mouth for a new savior. The reason we can’t have nice things is because too many of us are so completely gullible and easily manipulated by power-hungry crooks we paradoxically call “leaders.” The only thing these people are leading us into is a gigantic ditch.
Earlier this week, I came across the following tweet and it summed things up perfectly for me.
Ok, no joke - 45.6 million Americans on "food stamps" in the NINTH YEAR of this recovery, with stocks at record highs. Something is very wrong with the official narrative. (This is not an anti-food-stamp tweet.)https://t.co/A0OztdixPa
— Rudolf E. Havenstein, Anti-Davos Man (@RudyHavenstein) January 16, 2018
It’s all a lie.
All these leaders, whether they’re politicians in government or CEOs at mega corporations, they’re all lying to you. Things are not well and won’t get better until we grow up, take responsibility and stop being conned. If you don’t know who the sucker at the imperial poker table is, it’s probably you.
This is why I spent so much of the last year writing about how important it is to focus. on yourself. As individuals, we can’t control outside events and we can’t control the consciousness of others, but we can get ahold of our own minds and affect the world around us through our own actions. If enough of us focus on that as opposed to spending all our energy on external drama, things will get better.
Whether we think it’s a good thing or a bad thing, the U.S. empire is rapidly fading into the sunset. The signs are everywhere and are undeniable at this point. I don’t say this to fear-monger, but because I think it’s crucial people aren’t caught off guard by how much the world will change over the next 5-10 years.
As was the case with 9/11, it’s when we’re blindsided that we’re most easily manipulated by bad actors who want to control and take advantage of you. Let’s not be blindsided again.
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**Must-Read**: Well, well, well, I was wrong: Glenn Hubbard has issued a peep—but not, I note, an op-ed. And Douglas Holtz-Eakin—well, I do not know what Douglas Holtz-Eakin is doing: **Jonathan Chait**: [The Republican War on Economics](http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/12/the-republican-war-on-economics.html): "On Meet the Press Sunday, Chuck Todd asked Susan Collins how she could support a huge tax cut after having complained about excessive debt... >>...Economic growth produces more revenue and that will help to offset this tax cut and actually lower the debt... >she calmly replied. An incredulous Todd asked Collins how she could defend such a claim when every study has concluded the opposite. She cited Glenn Hubbard, Larry Lindsey, and Douglas Holtz-Eakin. Jennifer Rubin got ahold of two of the three, Hubbard and Holtz-Eakin. Both economists denied having ever claimed the Republican tax cuts would produce enough growth to recoup the lost revenue... Unfortunately, Douglas Holtz-Eakin is a lead signer on the [Hundred-Odd Unprofessional Republican Economists Letter](http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-tax-reform-opinion-congress-pass-2017-11): "Sophisticated economic models show the macroeconomic feedback generated by the TCJA will exceed... enough to compensate for the static revenue loss..." This is, for Holtz-Eakin, a "who are you going to believe—me or your lying eyes?" moment. For I have no idea how to...